by Lucia Ashta
“Are wasting our time,” Mordecai snapped. For the first time Tomlin actually appeared chagrined.
Mordecai and Albacus glided over next to me.
“Tell us, Jas,” Albacus said, surprising me that he should address me by my preferred name. “Does this have anything to do with…?” He circled a gnarled, wrinkled hand in front of the translucent robes of his translucent chest.
The entire group, including Sadie and Egan, leaned almost imperceptibly closer to us.
If the great wizards didn’t want any of them to know of my pendant, then I sure as hell was going to follow their lead.
“I don’t know,” I answered. “Maybe. I truly have no idea.”
Ugly Stick scoffed, and I groaned loudly and unladylike, throwing my hands in the air. I was so done with all this crap. I needed to be able to think for a bloody second to figure out why I was here instead of in the dining hall at the academy, preparing to head into Defensive Creature Magic 301 with Marcy June after lunch with my friends.
And fuck if the forest around me—with all its strange inhabitants—didn’t disappear in a flash.
I blinked stupidly some more, wondering if perhaps I had some kind of tumor putting pressure on my brain and all of this was some sort of delusional episode. It’d explain a hell of a lot.
Breathing a few times, I decided I was relatively okay, considering I was somewhere new … that still wasn’t the academy where I belonged.
I stood in a field of … sugar cane? I’d never seen sugar cane crops in person, but it’s exactly what it looked like.
I ran a hand through my hair and rubbed at my face, careful not to smudge my eyeliner and mascara. My eye makeup made my super light blue eyes look amazing, and at this rate who knew where I’d end up by the end of the day. Maybe there’d be someone I’d want to impress … somewhere.
I brought my hands to my hips and took in my surroundings. Nothing but sugar cane. Not a soul in sight.
And then the ground started shaking beneath me, the leaves of the cane surrounding me oscillating in a steady rhythm.
A roar reached my ears, and by instinct I pressed my eyes shut and called to my skunk. My skunk might not be as vicious as Ky and Rina’s mountain lion or Boone’s wolf; it might not be as badass as Leo’s eagle with its razor talons; but my skunk was three times the size of a normal skunk, and I was wicked fast in my shifter form.
Right away, my body blurred, flickered, and finally vibrated, and in seconds I poofed into my skunk. I’d been good at shifting from the start, but the many hours of practice Professor McGinty forced us to put in for his shifting classes had paid off.
Perking my ears, I waited as the ground rumbled, working to narrow down the direction of the giants’ approach.
Only it seemed like they were coming from every direction.
Shit.
There was nowhere to go. Even so, I cast a glance upward. As expected, no magical, floating ladder into the sky awaited my rescue.
Steeling myself to face whatever was coming, I felt the pendant hanging low around my neck swaying slightly. Good to know. My clothing and accessories didn’t accompany my shifts. The pendant had. The day couldn’t get any weirder.
Nope, never mind. It was going to a whole new level of bizarre. The creatures approaching were defining the term in an entirely fresh way.
Stampeding toward me was a herd of—I blinked my skunk eyes a few times—yep … pandacorns.
The panda bears with swirling, ivory horns on their crowns were chasing a little pandacorn. They were growling and snarling, and though the small pandacorn was running as fast as he could on his four legs, the others were larger and faster.
They’d be upon him in seconds.
I had no idea why I did it. Clearly, the issues of pandacorns weren’t mine. I had enough problems of my own without borrowing any.
But the pandacorn cub squealed as it ran, casting frantic glances over its shoulder. When it noticed me, its eyes widened to comical proportions, and it tripped and went tumbling … straight into me.
Without a second to spare—or to consider the insanity of my actions—I clamped my jaws around the pandacorn cub’s scruff and tore off into the fields of sugar cane.
11
Though the pandacorn was approximately half the size of my skunk, it was far too large for my jaw. Every few steps, it swung and slammed into my chest, interrupting my forward momentum.
The much larger and much fiercer pandacorns that pursued us slid to a stunned, momentary shock when I swept in to rescue the squirming mass of fur, but they didn’t delay long. They turned my way with infuriated growls.
I had to make a decision, and fast.
I’d be slower as a woman, but there was no way I’d be able to outrun our pursuers with the cub slamming against me like it was.
Pushing my speed as much as I could, I raced forward. I’d never shifted while moving before, but I didn’t have a second to spare.
Eyes wide, scanning the unending rows of sugar cane ahead, I whipped between the stalks and willed my shift to come.
Blur, flicker, and vibrate.
I’d done it hundreds of times, and I was the fastest at shifting in my class. So what if I was moving while I did it? It shouldn’t change a thing.
The sugar cane blurred past us as I called my shifter magic back within me, directing it deep into the center of my chest, where I stored it and it waited for me to call on it again.
There! Suction tugged on every inch of my skin at the same time, indicating that my shift had begun. Smoothly, I transitioned into the flickering part of my shift. The vacuum effect was gone, replaced by a tingling, as if every part of my body had fallen asleep at once.
Hmm, I hadn’t thought about that. I managed to continue running but my footfalls were awkward lumberings, and my right foot was completely asleep. I almost fell flat on my face—and the squealing pandacorn—twice, but I kept stumbling ever forward.
I shook with relief when the numbness subsided and my shift entered its final stage. The pandacorn in my hold whimpered as my body flickered in and out of sight, and I prepared to catch the cub without stopping. In the next few seconds, my skunk would vanish and I’d be a woman again.
The ground rumbled behind us, shaking furiously. The adult pandacorns were surely on my heels, but I didn’t dare so much as peek. My chest expanded despite my rapid breathing—full of magic, I supposed—as it does in that millisecond before my human form entirely replaces my shifter form.
Hoping I’d time it perfectly, I spit the squealing pandacorn out of my mouth. Its eyes widened in fear as it fell, and I almost lunged for it again.
But no. I had to wait.
Now!
I thrust my human arms forward and caught him like a pro quarterback, barreling ahead without stopping. The cub squirmed but quickly settled into my arms, where I squeezed it against my chest. Without it squirming to resist, I pumped my human legs as fast as they would go, clutching the cub against me with one arm, and freeing up the other to weave a path between the stalks that rushed to meet our faces.
Keeping my focus sharp, and solely on our need to outrun those that chased the cub—and now me—it took me a minute to notice that the ground had ceased its shaking. The sugar cane ahead of us no longer trembled; the only thing rustling among the stalks was me.
I snapped a quick glance behind me. The pandacorns behind us were … gone. The cub and I were enclosed by thick walls of sugar cane on all sides. No flashes of furry black and white.
I ran until I was breathing heavily and the cub in my arms had … fallen asleep?
So much for a sense of self-preservation…
I hadn’t heard a single growl or thumping footstep for a good while. I drew to a stop. Sides heaving, I sucked in greedy breaths. My surroundings were predictable: cane and more cane beneath vast stretches of sky, laden with heavy, fluffy clouds.
But there was nothing predictable about the little cub.
For starters it
was a he, and he was snoring softly. His body was all fluffy, thick, white and black fur, and he was round and chubby and simply … adorable.
Scowling, I grabbed him in both arms and held him in front of me so I could study him some more and so he’d wake up.
I didn’t need any more problems, not when I had so many of my own. Cute or not, I had to find the way to settle the little guy so I could be on my way, hopefully back to the academy, where someone had better be able to tell me what the hell was going on before I lost it entirely.
I was staring at a dozing pandacorn cub …when I was supposed to be in classes.
There was something incredibly wrong with this picture.
The cub didn’t even twitch when I moved him. He curled up around my arms in his sleep, his lower body hanging heavily beneath them.
His horn did indeed appear to be ivory, a beautiful thing that twisted until it reached a sharp, lethal point. The cub might look like he was one big, inoffensive cuddle, but his horn alone looked like it could spear a lion—or one of those other big, ferocious pandacorns hunting him down.
I looked around, at a complete loss. We appeared to be safe for the time being. But as much as I clearly didn’t belong here, I couldn’t just abandon the little guy to be hunted after I left. Whatever he’d done to deserve the adults’ wrath wasn’t likely to disappear during his nap.
I plopped down onto the ground. Covered with the decomposing debris of the sugar cane, it wasn’t the most comfortable, especially when I had to wedge myself between the thick stems on every side of me. Forced to curl my knees up toward my chest, I set the sleeping cub in the shelf between my thighs and my stomach. He hummed contentedly in his sleep and I couldn’t resist a chuckle. He was too endearing for his own good. Here he was, totally passed out in the care of a complete stranger, when he was being hunted by his own kind. Despite all that, he slept like a baby.
“Shit,” I said. “What the hell am I supposed to do now?”
Sadly, no window to the heavens opened up. No god spilled out to offer me a magical return to normalcy. An eerie silence settled across the fields, when surely I should have heard some sign of the adult pandacorns’ retreat. Maybe they were just hiding, biding their time … as I sat here like a, well, like a sitting duck.
Huffing, the white strand of hair along my face flitted upward. I had to get out of here, which would be a hell of a lot easier to do if I had an inkling of an idea of how I’d arrived here in the first place. Between Sir Lancelot, Mordecai, Albacus, and Melinda, surely one of them would know how to repair whatever glitch was veering my life completely out of control. Add in the rest of the staff and I was nearly guaranteed to find help. Every professor of the academy had a unique background and skill set. Any one of them could understand what was happening and direct me to the solution.
I relaxed by a fraction, until I remembered that I was still all alone—who knew where—with no one but a sleeping pandacorn cub to keep me company in my delusion. Panic tickled at my nerves while I forced myself to focus on my breath. I knew better than to lose myself to hysteria. I had to remain sharp if I was going to save myself—and the little cub.
Mimicking his deep breathing, I settled before long.
If I’d been the one to cause Ky’s sudden appearance in my bed, and my arrival at Sadie’s secret meeting, and if I’d also been the one to deliver myself here, then logic dictated that I’d also be able to get us out of here…
The power was within me already.
Or rather, it was within something on my person.
Reaching into my shirt, I pulled out the pendant. It looked like an innocuous piece of jewelry, but I was beginning to suspect it was far from it. Why else would Jabar wear it? He was rugged and masculine, especially when taking into account that his brethren fae weren’t always so. The jewelry was delicate and feminine; it hadn’t matched Jabar’s look one bit. He’d been rocking the metrosexual style. His skinny jeans had been tight in all the right places, his spiked dark hair, with bright violet tips, served as the perfect backdrop to his killer emerald eyes, and his shit-kicker boots hadn’t been entirely for looks. But beyond that, he had a fierce, manly vibe about him.
He wouldn’t have worn the feminine pendant unless he had good reason to.
I slid the crystal along its chain while adjusting my legs a bit. The cub was heavier than he looked and my ass was already going numb. Experimentally, I tugged on the fine silver chain, trying to snap it off me. As usual, it stretched the extent of my hold without breaking.
When I wrapped my fingers around the stone, caressing its soft, silky lines, it warmed at my touch. It was hard to tell over the soft snoring of Chubster, but it seemed like the pendant might have even started to hum—responding to me, perhaps.
How had it delivered me here, exactly?
Sighing heavily, I slumped my head forward, only to discover two warm, smiling eyes peering up at me.
“Chubster, you’re awake!”
Chubster’s cute panda face spread into a grin, revealing rows of tiny, sharp teeth. Then he yawned so wide I wondered if his jaw might become unhinged before he finally closed his mouth. He blinked sleepily up at me.
“What did you do to make all those big pandacorns mad at you?”
He cooed.
“Where’s your mom?” When he didn’t answer, I amended, “Do you have a mom? Surely even pandacorns do…”
But he merely cooed some more. Yes, I’d been hoping the pandacorn would answer me. And no, that didn’t make me crazy. I went to a school where the headmaster himself was a loquacious owl.
“Okay, Chubster, we can talk about the deets later. Just tell me how to get out of here for now.”
He burped and giggled. Somehow he even made belching cute, and I wasn’t about to have that. I had to stay focused.
“We need to get out of here right now. Before they come after you again. Do you understand me? We’re not safe here.” Though we totally seemed to be now that no one was chasing us.
He rolled in my lap and leaned forward, stretching, plopping right on my chest, horn pointing straight at my face. He peered up at me, happy with himself.
“You shouldn’t look so pleased with yourself,” I said, backing my face out of range of the deadly spear attached to the clumsy cub’s head. “You haven’t done anything to help our situation.”
When he giggled, like I’d said the funniest shit ever, I sighed loud enough to wake the dead. He giggled some more.
“What the fuck did I do to deserve this?” I threw my hands in the air and he lunged for one of them, thinking I was playing with him.
“Stop that. We need to get out of here.” But it was like talking to a petulant toddler, and I’d never met one that was quite this cute. For all I knew, Chubster didn’t even understand English.
When he jumped for my arm again, missed, and flopped onto his belly with an oomph, half on me, half on the ground, I gave up on asking him for help. I went back to clutching my pendant and trying to figure this crazy shit out. I had no idea of how long I’d been gone, but it couldn’t have been all that long. I was probably still supposed to be in Marcy June’s Defensive Creature Magic class, though most of the period had surely passed without me. I closed my eyes even though Chubster was trying to climb back up into my lap and sliding back down, where he resumed the process once more, climbing, sliding, and climbing again.
My class was held in Irele Hall, in the Illumination Room. Since Marcy June’s class was somewhat new, and had only been added to the curriculum when I started at the school, Ky, Boone, and Leo were in that class along with the rest of us, even though they were three terms ahead of us. That meant that Tracy, Stacy, and Swan were in the class too.
I pictured Marcy June at the head of the classroom, teaching with her usual intensity. The coyote shifter was as fierce as Sadie, and equally worthy of my admiration. Marcy June was petite just like me, and I loved how she made up for what she lacked in size with her huge personality.
> Marcy June would know what to do. At the very least, she’d know whose door to knock down to get some answers.
I wished for her help.
Gasps and squeals rang out around me before I’d even realized what happened.
12
I was perched awkwardly on the edge of a large desk and had to scramble to cross my legs and tuck my skirt around them so I didn’t flash anyone. All while balancing Chubster, who was about to walk off my lap, off the tabletop, and straight onto the floor several feet beneath us.
Lunging for him, I caught him by the scruff and pulled him back into my chest before looking up.
I was sitting on a desk at the front of a classroom, and from the looks of things, I’d landed us in Marcy June’s class just as I’d hoped.
The coyote shifter, who usually looked ready to kick some ass, no matter what the occasion, gaped at me, her attention flashing between Chubster and me like she couldn’t decide which was more shocking.
I took in our audience. Rows and rows of students gawped at us. Mouths hung open, questions were swallowed, several pens dropped loudly to the floor in the shocked silence.
Until tinkling bells began to chime without warning. Seemingly hidden behind the seams of the walls and ceiling, their ringing overcame the sudden chaos that erupted as the alarm shattered the stunned quiet.
Questions were hurled at me, loud enough to surpass the incessant chiming, but my attention was on the front few rows, where my friends usually sat. Their seats were completely empty. My heart sank stupidly before I could stop it. I blinked away tears of frustration. I needed my friends right now. I’d managed to return to the academy, but I still didn’t understand exactly how. What I could be mostly certain about by now was that the pendant that rested between my breasts was the culprit. It was warm enough to draw attention to its temperature. If it heated whenever it used magic, then it’d just used a whole bunch of it.